the expanded gas requires very heavy
machinery, and the operation develops much heat, which is absorbed by
the running water. In other words, the expanding gas having absorbed
much heat from the brine, and having been made cold by this means, must
be deprived of the heat thus gained by compression again into a coil
surrounded by running water, which takes away the heat as soon as it is
developed by compression.

Being now restored to the liquid form, the gas is ready to go on another
round, and may be used again and again. The only loss of gas sustained
is from leaky joints in the pipes.

It is a curious sight to see these pipes and pumps, even in the hottest
weather, all coated with a thick layer of snow-white frost, so thick
that it may be scraped off with the hands and squeezed into a snowball.
The brine-pumps soon lose their characteristic shape, and are scarcely
recognizable, looking more like a fantastic snow-drift than a piece of
iron machinery.

[Illustration: A BLOCK THAT STOOD SOME TIME IN THE SUN.]

Sometimes we see fine fruit or a bouquet of handsome flowers which had
been so placed in the water as to become frozen in the centre of a large
block of crystal ice. Such objects form beautiful ornaments while they
last.

Many people believe that coal is really at the foundation of cheap ice,
and that it will presently be cheaper to use coal to make ice than to
use it in transporting ice to the place where it is wanted. Artificial
ice is already produced in considerable quantities in districts where
natural ice is also cut for the market.

GRANDFATHER'S ADVENTURES.

AS A PIRATE.

"Ralph," said Grandfather Sterling, one winter's evening, as they sat
together before a fire of crackling logs, and listened with a dreamy
sense of snugness and comfort to the howlings of the storm without, "did
I ever tell you about the time that I was a pirate?"

"Grandpop!" exclaimed the startled boy, "you don't mean to say that you
were once a real pirate, the kind that rob people and cut their throats
and all that, just like the story of Captain Kidd in my school Reader?"

Grandfather Sterling nodded his head in assent.

"Yes, Ralph, your grandfather once sailed under the black-flag having a
white skull and cross-bones painted on it, and, what is more, he was a
member of the crew of the pirate schooner _Dragon_, commanded by Captain
Brand, the most notorious pirate that ever cruised among the West India
Islands